Pip Montgomery
Philippa Francesca Montgomery is a Forger/Extractor for SIS (MI6) who’s had her licence suspended for recklessness on the job and has been banished to a position as Interagency Liaison between SIS and the CIA. She’s a bit of a whirlwind type, always up for a bit of adrenaline and it's getting casually worse as she’s lost her key outlet, namely shared dreaming. Thus, she’s a bit of a livewire at the moment and looking for cheap thrills, though nothing that will really compromise her opportunity of getting back to her ‘Dream Team’, especially since her opportunity may have presented itself in the form of an operation to bring in renowned English Dream Criminal Felix Thornton. Pip Montgomery is portrayed by actress Rosamund Pike. Personality There are times when Intelligence Agencies need wild cards; Pip Montgomery is one of SIS’s. She’s the counter-point to the straight-laced drones that fall within the statutory guidelines and play by the rules, eyeing down the Service’s goals and going about achieving them with whatever method she deems necessary. (With her superiors always at a safe distance, of course, to maintain plausible deniability and always with the old clandestine service adage; ‘Don’t get caught’.) She’s inventive, cunning and willing to blur the edges to get the job done. She’s an expert at deception and deep-seated loyalist to the Crown, her love for Queen and country making her a valuable asset. This is where her true loyalty lies and, while she may disdain agents within the service for their methods or lack of spine, she will always close ranks with her colleagues against any foreign influence. This is not a symbol of any sort of discrimination on her part, in fact, Pip is passionate about culture and difference, she has simply been in the political interest game long enough to know that motive in these things is never as it seems. For this reason, liaising and intelligence sharing is her pet hate. She knows the cards are never balanced and is continually of the opinion that Her Majesty’s government is frequently giving more than it’s getting. Thus, Pip is never overly trusting and tends to live life for experience rather than long-term connection or plans. Her attention span is short and her relationships even shorter, her taste for excitement and newness almost insatiable. There is nothing Pip delights in more than playing games and she frequently does so with anyone who happens to be in the vicinity when the urge strikes. This lack of deep-forged connection has rendered her a somewhat unstable force and her emotions seem to fluctuate as much as her taste in adventures, meaning she can be unpredictable and, to some, rather irrational at times. She’s a creature driven by instinct, a valuable asset in her work in general, enabling her to improvise her way out of tricky situations, but less so in the business of building strong peer and employer relationships. Thus, she is frequently on the wrong side of the ‘protocol Nazis’. With her skill in deception, Pip is also a first class manipulator and, being a creature largely dedicated to her own ends, can hardly be trusted to be anything other than selfish. If your interests coincide with hers for the present, you’re in luck. If not, don’t expect her sympathy. She’s all things to all people and knows how to get what she wants, so she’ll have no problem playing it hard or coy dependent on the circumstances. Ultimately, Pip’s a bit of a whirlwind and its tough to tell which way she’s going to move. Just when you think you have a handle on her, you may be very much surprised. Relationships With Elijah Thomas How ought one to categorise Eli? Pip certainly doesn't try any longer with her fellow SIS Agent since the two have begun to complicate their lives significantly. Pip first met Eli when they were both assigned to SIS Headquarters in London, sharing a rather hazy, not to mention vaguely unprofessional, evening with him and a bottle or two of Her Majesty's finest. The pair hadn't expected a repeat event, but on running into the, really very well-spoken, gent in Washington D.C. after the disappointment of her professional banishment, it seemed to be becoming a habit and one more easily remembered. So, trying to iron out their relationship in order to maintain some professional decorum, Pip attempted to set the record straight, but was rudely interrupted by the riot caused by Liam Tremblay's anti-shared dreaming rally. With Gemma Walker Pip was recently assigned to work opposite Gemma Walker on a case to bring in notorious dream criminal Felix Thornton, with both assigned to their respective American agencies in charge of his capture in Washington D.C. The pair quickly resolved that more was to be gained working together under American noses to nab Thornton for SIS (a plan Pip is hoping will get her enough kudos with the boss to get her real job back). Pip is also aware that Gemma is Eli Thomas's partner and has yet to share with her her knowledge of him, not entirely certain that it'd be wise to do so considering their latest foray into interagency liaising... History Philippa Francesca Montgomery, or Pip to those who know her, came into the world on the Fool’s Day in 1979 and the date seemed to rub off on the daughter of Catherine and Graeme Montgomery; from the first moment of her arrival, she made her presence felt with a distinct and incessant wailing. It was clear that ‘quieten down’ was a phrase that would be well used in the young girl’s life. Her early years were largely without incident, though her father was frequently absent because of the demands of his career. (While he was listed officially as a Career Diplomat, Pip would later learn that he was, in fact, on assignment for the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly referred to as MI6.) Pip was a very curious child, and often found herself in all sorts of odd nooks and crannies in her parent’s comfortable home in Notting Hill, London. She always liked to imagine that she might discover Narnia in some abandoned wardrobe. It was only much later that she discovered that she only needed a pillow to carry her beyond the realms of restriction brought on by the corporeal. As a young girl, Pip’s mum, born of aristocracy, began instructing her daughter in some of the more proper modes of posture and deportment. She learned to carry herself like a socialite, though her mother had long since rebelled against the system and worked her way into a position as a policy advisor within the Treasury. Catherine Montgomery felt that while her daughter need never feel the expectation of the life of the privileged, there was no reason she shouldn’t reap some of its benefits and Pip has retained this air throughout her life. When it came time to start school, Pip was sent away to boarding school in Sussex, where many of the senior diplomatic corps sent their children. She did well in her schooling, though it was clear that her interests lay in story writing, performing arts and competitive sports. It also became clear that Pip had a natural affinity for influencing others and Mrs Montgomery received a letter or two from the faculty expressing concern over her slightly manipulative countenance. It was never deemed entirely serious, though it was noted that Pip was a somewhat boisterous young girl and the five years she spent at the school enabled her confidence to flourish. It was also during this time that she began to experience extreme lucidity in her dreaming, which unsettled her at first, but soon became an outlet for her more curious side and began to show itself in her writing. When Pip was eight years old, the year 1989, her father was offered a family-friendly posting to Berlin after the falling of the Wall and Pip was uprooted and installed in an international school in Berlin, her mother taking up a position as a Treasury representative at the British High Commission. This proved pivotal in informing two aspects of Pip’s personality. She learned at once of the thrill of a new life in a new environment, as well as the danger of growing too attached, having left a great many friends behind in Sussex. As a result, and compounded by the consistent moving around of the next eight years as her father’s postings changed, she became increasingly detached from the environment and people around her and increasingly attached to the thrill of an ever-shifting existence, learning a deep love for culture and the rich experiences this offered and realizing this more fully in the dreams that seemed so vivid to her. She continued her love of drama, learning to be an excellent mimic amongst the multitude of accents present at any time during her youth. Ultimately, she decided on a career in diplomacy and, having returned to London and begun studying a degree in International Relations, she came across a far more interesting and challenging idea… She had known there were a number of intelligence agents amongst the High Commission’s employees (though not who they were, of course) and, at university, she discovered the intricacies of intelligence analysis and gathering and decided that a career in the Clandestine Services might be just that little more challenging and offer her a lifetime more rewarding. Thus, she directed her studies at making herself a desirable candidate, continuing her study of German as well. It was during her university years that she made another fascinating discovery; shared dreaming. Having talked about her lucid dreaming experiences with a peer, he at once told her of a breakthrough phenomenon the university was calling ‘Co-incidental Dreaming’. Though Pip did not pursue this information with much vigour, she did have one very rough experience of sharing another’s dream-world. Once done with her studies, she was accepted as an Operational Officer for the Secret Intelligence Service and read her father in as her family contact. At this point, she became aware that he, too, had been in the employ of MI6 for over twenty years. Pip’s career was stellar, her ability to adapt and skill in performance making her a valuable asset, though it became clear that she had issues with authority. She served in Israel, Afghanistan and later Russia picking up a grounding in Farsi and Russian in addition to her already fluent German, as well as an affinity for hand-to-hand combat, particularly the Israeil Krav Maga. It was at this point that Pip began to realize how valuable an asset she was and slowly began to bend the rules more blatantly, blurring her ethical compass for Queen and Country and showing decreasing regard for her superiors in a great many ways. Finally, Her Majesty’s government found use for the slightly wayward, yet brilliant, young Officer and stationed her amongst the newly developed ‘Dream Team’, as it was dubbed by a great many colleagues, and she was drafted into the training programme, quickly putting her skills in deception and manipulation into a growing talent for forgery with some skill in extraction as well. She quickly became a force to be reckoned with and, even quicker, a notoriously loose cannon in many regards, her methods proving both risky and sketchy in their ethics. This was a symbol that she was using her dream existence to gain that edge that she so craved. Her superiors were in the habit of looking the other way on many occasions, however, happy to see Pip producing results. Eventually, this would backfire on the young forger, her adventures landing a particularly unfortunate mission in Georgia, which saw the loss of two key servicemen. Heads had to roll, in the eyes of the government department in charge, and Pip was instantly blamed, her risky history taking centre stage and her Shared Dreaming Licence suspended until further notice. She was unassigned for two months, incredibly angry and itching to get back to work, though she would never share just how anxious she was at losing her opportunity to dream-share, and, finally, she accepted a post working in Washington D.C. as an Inter-agency Liaison for the CIA. She hated the idea, but hated idleness even more and, thus, she made her way to D.C., hoping to prove herself a capable asset once more and get out of the intelligence sharing assignment as quickly as possible and back where she belonged. It has now been three months and Pip is bored stiff, anxious as ever to return to her former status and concealing her disdain for her position with a great deal of skill and very little patience. Her licence is still suspended and her withdrawal from dreaming is affecting her quite badly. She is more volatile than ever, pressing for that extra thrill in a very active social life and incessant temptation to drift into some freelance work. The cost of getting caught, however, still holds her back. Skills Forging/Deception – SIS doesn’t just hire any old hacks to fill its ranks. Pip knows her stuff and she can probably make a dreamer believe Angelina Jolie dropped in for an afternoon visit if she put half her mind to it. (As a sort of addendum to this is the usual knack for deception and performance that is necessary to pull it off.) Ability to Improvise – the Dream World, much like the traditional world of intelligence is about being able to adapt the plan. Pip has long been in the habit of being spontaneous and it shows. Martial Arts/Hand-to-Hand Combat – Pip prefers to get physical when she takes on an opponent. Krav Maga is her style of choice. She likes to get straight to the point. Languages – Pip is fluent in over six million forms of communication. (Of course I’m kidding, but she’s got a decent grounding in Russian, Farsi and German as a result of her service training.) Impressions – Pip does a mean Margaret Thatcher. Category:Characters Category:Played By: Mdme Butterfly